The Second Date of Christmas – Sipping Rose (and Remembering Rose Weather!)
On the second date of Christmas, my true love brought to me–a glass of rose and a warm memory. We love classic rose and like most wine lovers, sip and serve it a lot during warm summer weather. But when Napa wine country cools down to Christmastime temperatures, we find ourselves scrounging in the cellar for the last few of the summer season’s bottles. For one, it’s a great way to finish them up–most northern hemisphere dry roses should be consumed the summer following their harvest date. Fine with us! But even better, returning to rose brings back those warm-weather memories, with a bonus: dry rose is an amazing match with something we’d never be able to enjoy in summer: Dungeness crab.
I’d never even have tried it if not for one of our greatest summertime-in-winter “date” memories–Michy’s restaurant in Miami. I wrote in The First Date of Christmas about Chef Linton Hopkins, who just joined the Delta culinary “dream team.” Michy’s Chef/Owner Michelle Bernstein was the original culinary goddess for Delta, and someone I considered a culinary national treasure even before Delta gave me the chance to work with her, which I treasure. Remember the old Food Network–back when real chefs cooked on it? Remember the show Melting Pot? That was Michelle. (Okay, Bobby Flay, Alton Brown and the Iron Chefs are real culinary pros still on today’s Food Network but otherwise…)
But I digress, when we were busy tasting rose and Dungeness crab–ummm! No, Michelle was not serving Dungeness crab in Miami. That would just be dumb when she has access to the stone crab season and, huh-LO!–conch. The joy of eating her conch lollipops absolutely dwarfed the most childhood pleasure I have possibly ever taken from a holiday candy cane. Michelle’s husband David Silverman does the wine selections and is a rockstar at it. The delicious roses he served us were a Spanish and a Napa Valley–two totally different taste experiences. Ours tonight is Pret a Boire (that means “ready to drink” in French) also from Napa, made by the wine goddess Heidi Barrett.
Enjoy this little bit of inspiration to sip the last of your 2012 roses this holiday season–a great pick if you do the traditional (to Italians, at least) Christmas Eve meal of all seafood. You’ve heard of Christmas in July–so how about summer time at Christmas! Then afterwards you can cozy up by the fire with a glass of Port like we did with our Michy’s dessert, and get the best of both seasons.
Andrea, I DO remember the Food Network in its early days. In fact, I believe that I remember you being featured on the show “Dining Around.” I can’t remember the names of the hosts, but it seems David Rosengarten was on that program, as well.
Actually, Alan Richman and Nina Griscom. David was “In Food Today.” And my first show was Quench. Wow!
Andrea, I remember the first show I saw you on, don’t remember the name of it but chefs would cook something and there were others that would sit and watch. Then you got up and made a cocktail to go with what was cooked.
Yes that was Cooking Live Prime Time with Sara Moulton. Great show! Thanks for the memories:)
Andrea,
I love my rose wines from France and I bring them home as often as I can to enjoy by the pool all summer long. In this video I think you were served a French rose from the Bandol “Old” region, not a Spanish like you stated above. Unless it was one that wasn’t shown on the video. To me…il y a un gros difference! 🙂
Thank you so much for these lessons. I love them!!
Julie
Good catch! Thanks so much for visiting and watching!